Vietnam is positioned at the heart of Asia – Pacific and is easily accessible by cruise liners. Late last year, Vietnam put into operation a seaport in a bid to attract more holidaymakers.

With visitors from more than 50 countries and territories, Celebrity Millennium cruise ship is the first of its kind to dock at Ha Long seaport. A specialised seaport to meet the tourist demand, coupled with fascinating cultural aspects, has presented more reasons for tourists to visit Vietnam. Vietnam is becoming an increasingly famous destination for international cruise ship. Annually, some 500 cruise ships with nearly 300,000 passengers visit Vietnam, ranking the country fourth in the number of cruise ship arrivals, just behind Japan, China and Thailand. Investment in infrastructure to attract more cruise ship passengers and holidaymakers has been focused on in recent years, to reduce pressure on domestic airports. Among more than 15 million foreign visitors to Vietnam in 2018, only nearly 3 percent of them were cruise ship visitors. This is due to the fact that Vietnam’s infrastructure hasn’t met with growing demand. Most of the seaports are just for ship docking, not a specialised port that caters to tourism. To attract more visitors from markets such as North America, Europe and other Asian countries, infrastructure improvement and investment are a must, along with heightened service quality and connection with prestigious cruise ship brands are the key to developing cruise ship tourism./.